


not that i don't believe in ghosts

by darkaslay



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Multi, OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-08-23 11:16:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8325655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkaslay/pseuds/darkaslay
Summary: occurs somewhere in season 1, maybe. in some alternate universe.silas is still not your typical uni, and danny has to cope with carmilla and laura being a thing, while also coping with a multitude of weird feelings she shouldn't have feelings about.





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> inyourchokoa-crunch.tumblr.com and darkaslay almost everywhere else.

if their initial meetings don’t clue her in enough, by mid semester danny learns an important truth: carmilla is an asshole. a complete, fucking asshole. 

*

danny has a drawer full of stakes. 

for the past few weeks she’s been running through the woods that are on the edge of campus. The trees are scattered enough to skim by (although she doesn’t mind the scratches on her arms and cheeks left by low hanging twigs) and eerie enough to keep away anyone who is in the right state of mind. her summer society sisters send out patrols by the clearings for those who wander too far, but now they’re there mostly for danny, danny who keeps running but can’t seem to run away. 

*

carmilla picks up laura from lit every class. she’s possessive by nature or simply by the fact that she’s an asshole, an arm around laura’s waist or shoulders, a hand dipped low in laura’s back pocket. 

usually danny doesn’t look. she’s not a masochist. but one day she chances a glance at them, at carmilla and her sharp, bright red smile. it reminds her of a sickle.

*

danny returns with a little more than a few scratches from some runs, and brings back bruises and scraped knuckles. the sisters don’t ask, they know better. 

when they try to clean danny’s hands with loving care and patience, the healing lasts for all of ten minutes. they usually find her in the gym later, tearing the wounds open on a punching bag with absolutely no intention of recovery.

after that they set the bottle of hydrogen peroxide on danny’s desk and leave the rest up to her.

*

danny doesn’t really commit the same mistakes twice. carmilla and laura become a two for the price of one shit-package so she avoids laura and by extension, carmilla. laura is one vice but coupled with carmilla, it’s a volatile mixture. 

but carmilla is a fucking asshole. 

They’re in the stands at danny’s track meet, laura’s cheers and silas u poster a genuine display of support while carmilla lounges next her, a languid body of indifference and boredom. 

it’s a crowd of a few hundred, everyone on their feet, shouting and cheering, and yet carmilla is the one that stands out in her apathy.

that night danny collapses on her bed. she could still run, a twitch firing muscles that beg to keep moving, but wobbly legs and enervated lungs would never get her far. 

she sleeps as well as an exhausted body can, with no desire to wake.

*  
the library is harmless when it isn’t perused for sinister information. danny knew that much. she hadn’t survived to being a graduate student without knowing the basics of the forsaken university. 

it’s the same reason why she stops grading papers when the softest, most innocent sound gets her attention. Nothing, and no one, was innocent at this time of night.

“i can smell the blood on you,” danny lies, but it’s an insult all the same, so what does it matter. but she does smell the one person who wouldn’t be caught dead down in the library again, on the one person that is dead.

“i could say the same for you.”

danny frowns and grips her pen harder, the skin tightening and ripping the fresh scabs on her hands. 

“did you need something, or is this you being your usual asshole self?”

“a little of both.” carmilla walks down the row of books and out of the immediate shadows, gliding a finger down stacks of chemistry journals, forgotten and scattered pages of articles hanging limply. when carmilla flicks the edge of one, dust flies. “you quit being a ta.”

“i did.”

danny was wary of carmilla and watched her intently for the sole purpose of self-preservation. carmilla’s mere presence made danny so alert, her anxiety so wound, it hurt the way cramps did, severely and unfairly.

it didn’t help how unaffected carmilla was, acting like she knew nothing about being a loaded gun, a breath’s worth away from being triggered.

“that’s too bad.”

human eyes don’t shine in the absence of light like carmilla’s do and it’s captivating the way danny thinks sirens are, screaming of caution. she wonders if laura sees it. she has to.

danny’s voice loses some of the animosity, replaced with careful consideration. “what did you want, carmilla?”

the name turns carmilla colder, and it’s the carmilla danny has seen for months, the carmilla she met. 

carmilla walks down the rows until she disappears, her voice trailing somewhere between papers and stale air and, still, somehow right at danny’s ear.

“try not to study too hard, oh, danny girl.”

*

danny’s vigilance heightens at the prospect of a possible, unpredictable visit from carmilla. it makes her hair stand more than any other of silas u’s unsavory characters do. danny anticipates her like one anticipated death, with a wish for details and the hope it should not come too soon.

but it messes with danny’s head more than she’d care to admit. she watches her back more than usual on her walks home from the library, her muscles plagued with tension for precipitous defense. 

it’s exhausting.

carmilla is still a threat as far as danny is concerned, especially _to_ danny. carmilla divulges nothing of her intentions which makes danny unsure exactly how careful to be of carmilla. how much of it is just thrown bravado to make danny squirm, and how much is true?

*

on the eve of the autumnal equinox, the summer society sisters begin their nightly marches. autumn and winter brought devastating changes to not just the climate but the university as well. more people got hurt and weirder things happened (by silas standards) during this time, the faster approaching nightfall a temptation to the degenerate.

danny stations herself, by herself, at the woods. they were comforting in their openness, the wide spread of trees making it close to impossible for anyone to hide in them, even in the dark. the moon’s light when full illuminated enough. 

her first watch is uneventful and it makes her nervous. her fear culminates right before dawn, the coldest it’s been all night, her breaths long but trepid puffs of steam from her mouth. she sees the dark form emerge from nothing, from the greater darkness of the woods like out of oblivion.

danny draws her bow and arrow, adrenaline thumping through her heart but her hand keeps steady, precise.

“don’t move or I’ll shoot.”

“i don’t doubt it,” a disturbingly calm voice tells her. danny pulls the arrow back farther. 

her eyes play tricks on her the harder she concentrates and soon the trees blend with the shadows and everything distinguishable vanishes.

“what’re you aiming for, katniss?”

the words come from behind her ear, a chill spreading underneath her scarf and numbing her neck but danny barely notices. she swings her body around, leveling the arrow right to carmilla’s head. 

carmilla barely registers a weapon is directed at her. she lazily lifts a finger and puts it at the arrow’s tip. Danny stares in disbelief as her arms, rigid and stiff, ultimately fall as carmilla effortlessly lowers the bow. danny feels betrayed by her own body. 

“what the hell are you doing here?” danny spits out the question like an accusation. 

carmilla isn’t bothered. “rabbits mostly. they’re not as bitter as the deer. but then I smelled something more skittish, something with a lot more fear.”

danny thinks to draw the arrow again but can’t. it wasn’t some vampiric lore of inexplicable control, carmilla simply seems subdued. but danny isn’t dumb; she remained guarded and waited. 

“i haven’t had anything fresh in much too long. it doesn’t bode well for my strength,” carmilla professes as though danny was too much of a coward to ever use the information against her. it makes danny’s anger radiate, heat flowing to her chest and arms and she’s sure carmilla can feel it too with what she says next. “and laura is much too sweet for my taste.”

danny doesn’t hesitate another second and grabs an arrow from her quiver, holding it like a knife. she could stab carmilla, shut her up once and for good. but in time danny’s mind could not perceive, carmilla grips the arrow out of danny's hand and splinters it in half like a twig.

the effortlessness of it all—for carmilla to cripple her, the harsh reality that she could squash danny like a roach under the heel of her foot, her own damn weakness as a human begets a fury danny has never known. 

carmilla humors danny with a fight and let’s danny pin her to a tree. the crack of carmilla’s skull is hauntingly satisfying but too brief a moment of victory. all it takes is one strike and danny is on her hands and knees instantly, the dewy earth dampening her jeans and dirtying her palms.

a whimper breaks from danny’s throat unwillingly when carmilla grabs her hair, pulls danny to her, her teeth clenched but smiling wickedly, hungrily. 

“you think i’m enough?”

it doesn’t cross danny’s mind to continue fighting. she lets carmilla tug at her hair with a hardened fist, danny’s back arching to ease the pain as carmilla leans into her, their mouths almost touching.

danny can’t look away when carmilla asks another question, eyes shining and wild with what looks like revenge.

“how much of laura do you think is on me?”

it doesn’t bother her at first. it doesn’t faze danny, whatever torment carmilla must be going through, because this can’t just be for fun. carmilla is an asshole, but she’s not a sadist. 

carmilla releases danny a moment later, not at all gently, but with a stifled anger barely under control. she stares at danny’s mouth for another moment, fixated and focused, so unlike the seconds ago where danny could almost see the color, or lack of it, vibrate in carmilla’s eyes. 

then she’s gone. it’s less a puff of smoke like danny always imagined and like she’s heard lafontaine retell. but it’s immediate and inhuman, which is exactly how she imagined it.

her head throbs from where carmilla held her and her body turns colder with the last of the adrenaline fading away. the first of the sun’s rays hit the horizon and peek through the trees as she reaches for her lip. she touches it and sees a bright red dot on her fingertip. 

she thinks to clean it, but does a quick wipe instead. what’s the point, it’s not like she’s been smiling these days to split it.

*

danny ignores the fight, carmilla’s questions. they linger in the background like hanged traitors, lifeless but present.

it’s a slow road back to sanity.

*

days crawl. the trees get barer, the ground withers in frost, crunching and rustling with dead leaves. danny runs more the colder it gets, especially with the time she has now after quitting her ta job. the sisters keep less of an eye out for her, but (and this is least they can do) keep note she’s alive.

the little injuries she gathers never really heal, the dry weather hardening and callousing her further than skin deep.

at least her mind stays quiet.

* 

and yet, sometimes, she wakes to carmilla’s voice in the dead of night, asking her again.

“how much of laura do you think is on me?”

danny feels just as weak without carmilla there to hold her. she feels just as helpless. but danny ignores how it might be less about carmilla, and more about the answer to the question.

*

the summer society throws a fundraiser. they call it that for safety code regulations and to keep university officials from wondering why their house was flooded with students. in reality, it’s any other crummy party, with marginally priced beer, shots, and a spiked, pink concoction. 

she retreats to the den where the more mellow guests have congregated, a sparse few on the couch with a smoke, and some by the bar with the actual alcohol, the scotch, whiskey, and brandy. danny doesn’t mind; they’re not guzzling it out of the bottles, and more importantly, it keeps unwanted interactions to that side of the room.

between nursing a beer and playing rounds of darts, carmilla appears, just as quietly as before and from the corner of danny’s eye. danny’s jaw clenches instinctively, but she doesn’t want to give carmilla any satisfaction of giving her attention and keeps throwing darts. 

but carmilla idles by danny, lingering patiently, as though she knows she could run the clock more than danny. and it’s true.

“you’ve got some nerve,” danny says under her breath, sure carmilla could hear every syllable perfectly, and punctuates it with a particularly charged throw. the dart whacks against the board and possibly into the wall.

carmilla does nothing. she makes no movement, no blink, no breath—not that she could do that last one anyway. exactly what was it about carmilla that made her a monster in silence and catastrophe? 

it’s unnerving, but danny isn’t about to run out of the one place she feels safe by the one thing out of all the horrors on this campus that made her skin crawl. she decides to make it known to carmilla, crossing over to her with a dart in her fist, bracing it for whatever carmilla has in place of a heart. 

it’s not an arrow but it’ll do, the sharp point of the dart at carmilla’s skin, not quite piercing but its purpose undeniably clear. 

the room clears, stoners stumbling and the drunks leaving uncapped bottles and unfinished drinks on the bar top. 

“if you think that’ll work go ahead and try,” carmilla dares, and that’s exactly what it sounds like. she’s practically urging danny.

danny reworks her fingers around the dart, nails digging into her palm. she’d do it, she’d end it right now, she would.

suddenly, and awfully, the answer to carmilla’s question seeks danny’s voice. danny flattens it somewhere between her diaphragm and stomach but it ends up sitting heavy and low in her gut.

“you’re not worth the mess i’d have to clean after,” danny hisses through a locked jaw and tight throat, in case the other words she wants to say manage to escape.

Carmilla’s mouth makes something between a grin and a snarl. 

“come now, lawrence, don’t disappoint me.”

blood trickles underneath the metal point, and it surprises danny, a drop flowing down and disappearing underneath carmilla’s shirt without regard for either of them. blood that would’ve bled no different from danny’s. 

the second danny’s hand unfurls, the dart drops away and carmilla’s hands wrap around her head.

carmilla doesn’t taste like a rotting body, like the dead should. she tastes like grape soda. like chocolate chip cookies. like hot cocoa in a tardis mug.

danny tears herself away with a broken gasp, choking and coughing, because there was nothing in her to breathe. her lungs felt empty and vacuumed hollow.

yelling and a crash outside the door makes their heads turn. danny's throat is burning and sore, but forgotten as screams start resounding through the house.

they take a quick glance at each other before danny runs out. there was no way in hell or silas u she wanted whatever conversation was going to happen next. 

the harsh and earsplitting roar of ceramic breaking begins to echo around her when she runs into the hallway. damn gnomes and their petty wars.

a zeta throws her a baseball bat and as she shatters the gnomes like glass, she can’t help but be thankful for their invasion.

*

danny sees the ruins of her battle later that night. there were cuts all over her body, the ceramic edges of half destroyed gnomes making unlikely but effective weapons. the summer society house goes from a party to a battleground to an infirmary, unscathed sisters and zetas tending to the injured. 

danny shuts out the helping hands (they’ll be more useful to anyone else) and locks herself in her private bathroom. she cleans the cuts deliberately and thoroughly, taking her time in the process. under the door she sees the shadows of people walk by, some stopping hesitantly at her door before continuing on. 

there’s another set of marks she finds: small but horrific, red aftermaths of nails at her throat. they look nothing like the rest of her wounds. 

when she showers, it’s with scalding water, desperate it’ll be enough to disinfect her.

*

she doesn’t get the luxury of forgetting quickly. the nail marks disappear and are replaced with even nastier bruises.


	2. 2

“a gnome did that to you? How?” Lafontaine asks, purely inquisitively, probably scientific theories of evolving gnome dexterity running through their head. 

Danny dodges lafontaine’s hand as they try to touch her neck. there’s this irrational fear a closer inspection will reveal the truth.

“yes, it was a gnome. And I don’t remember how, I didn’t have time to think what was coming at me and why; I was attacked, so I attacked back.”

“mm, how primal of you.”

Danny rolls her eyes but smiles when Lafontaine does. Her lip tugged at the small scar there, almost fully mended.

They don’t hang out much but it’s a symbiotic relationship. Danny tells Lafontaine how she is, what she’s been up to, what’s new with her; Lafontaine tells danny how laura is, what laura’s been up to, what’s new with laura. Lafontaine never questions the relay of information, or maybe why danny couldn’t talk to laura herself. Danny’s sure it’s self-explanatory anyway.

*

the gnomes had a difficult time with surrendering. The majority of them were eradicated at the sumsoc party but every now and then danny had to smash a few that tried to terrorize an innocent student.

On one particular night, she hears the familiar scream of such waged fight and sprints to its source. She rounds a corner with her feet skidding and hands dexterously arming her bow.

It’s dark but everyone is visible, the emergency lights of the path shining just enough for danny to see. The student is accounted for, already scrambling away. The accoster is a gremlin-looking creature, a grotesque heap of protruding bones and patchy hair and the nastiest saliva-dripping-snarls danny could hear as she advanced carefully. But there’s someone else, fighting the thing, and at first danny thinks it’s a sumsoc sister.

They’re moving too fast for danny to get a clear shot but danny knows both fighters are not human. She continues to advance and after a brutal swipe of the gremlin’s claws at the defender’s back, she sees it’s carmilla. The attack keeps carmilla down and danny shoots arrow after arrow at the unsuspecting enemy. The creature yowls, arrows lodged across its chest and just as danny runs out of ammunition, it stumbles back with a whimper of a growl and retreats into the woods. Danny would love to pursue it, kill it for good, but she can’t risk it. her bow is only as good as her arrows. 

She runs to carmilla once it’s clear, the vampire slow to rise and danny slow to comfort.

Carmilla is obviously not okay, danny won’t ask it, but she doesn’t know what to do exactly. Carmilla bleeds like a human, her face twisting in pain like a human’s but danny knows she’s not and it makes all the difference.

“we should get you to the sumsoc house. I can stitch you up—”

carmilla lifts a firm hand to silence danny and sits up, blood already pooling behind her back and onto the pavement.

“so you can butcher my skin with your messy suturing? No thank you.”

danny frowns, her sympathy receding. “you have gashes down your back at least 3 inches deep. It’s a miracle you are alive.”

“what a miracle it is,” carmilla sneers and gets up with some difficulty. Danny doesn’t reach out to help, knowing she’d get spurned. If carmilla wanted to suffer through the agonizing pain by herself, danny was not going to stop her.

They part ways, danny heading in the opposite direction of carmilla. But a few steps in, she makes a sharp turn and sprints up a hill and keeps running. It’s the long way she tells herself, the scenic route, she hasn’t gotten a good run in a while but she has no reason as for why she stops over the clearing that overlooks the undergraduate dorms. She waits, catching her breath, and soon sees carmilla staggering into view. It’s not until the door closes behind carmilla that danny jogs down the hill and makes her way back to her own room.

* 

on a different night, in the same part of woods, danny patrols with watchful eyes but her body isn’t as jumpy as the last few months. She almost allows herself the comfort of carmilla’s shadow creeping behind the trees, the company of another lonely predator. but only so as long as carmilla stayed there, by the shadows. 

After what danny assumes is a successful hunt (danny watched, mesmerized, when she heard the small scuffle in the leaves and the silenced shriek of a rabbit) carmilla approaches her and they quietly wait out the rest of the moon’s glow. 

At dawn, danny can see more of carmilla’s face, the outline of her dark eyes. She licks her dry lips and remembers how laura tasted on carmilla and she shouldn’t care, but the nights have been too long and fatigue strips her of her guard. 

“how’s your back?”

“healing.”

Danny’s mind dances around carmilla, all of their exchanges and meetings, shrouded in a fog of hate and, what danny hoped to be, misunderstanding.

“why were you at the party?” 

what danny really meant to ask was if carmilla came to see her that night, but there’s no way danny’s pride would let her. carmilla sees right through the question and rescinds any notion of it with a scoff.

“don’t flatter yourself, jolly orange giant. Laura wanted to go, and I wouldn’t have even walked up the steps if the science one of the dimwit squad hadn’t mentioned something about a gnome retaliation sometime soon. It wasn’t difficult to connect the dots.”

Danny had heard the same but figured it foolish for the gnomes to attack when the strongest of the student body were gathered all in the same place and time. she overestimated their intelligence.

“that doesn’t explain why you came into the den.”

Danny hated that she wanted to know. She didn’t want to want anything from carmilla.

“i…heard you,” carmilla explains, then sighs. what a chore it must have been to string along more than two sentences. Danny has to fight to not roll her eyes. “It’s a tedious thing to describe. Vampires can sense their own presence in people. It’s why our victims fall so easily. We never take anyone who doesn’t want us in some manner.”

Danny swallows down her mounting vulnerability and vehemently denies carmilla. 

“you better get that checked then because it’s wrong.”

“it’s stronger with hate,” carmilla continues, disregarding danny. “Lust is a flighty thing, but hate coats and seeps and devours. and it’s all over you.”

There was no protesting that.

Carmilla continued still, “I’m sure you’ve heard the adage of the thin line between love and hate.” Carmilla’s expression sharpened, her eyebrows knitting together. “You tread it dangerously.”

“you must be brain dead as well if you think I’m anything but sickened by you.”

“I’m sure,” carmilla sighs wearily, danny’s forswearing made boring to her and turns to leave.

Danny lets carmilla walk until she realizes she hadn’t gotten an answer yet and calls after her.

“you still haven’t explained why. So you…heard me or whatever. Why didn’t you ignore it?”

carmilla doesn’t turn around.

“I tried to.” 

*

Danny’s patrols are measured in layers of clothing. They start to add up— thick undergarments under sweaters and jackets, boots that leave imprints as deep in the snow as they are heavy, a rotation of different colored hats that would match her jeans if they weren’t lying in her closet, awaiting warmer weather.

Carmilla does not do the same. She sprints after prey in anything that doesn’t confine her and danny usually buries into her wool blanket deeper at the sight.

They don’t talk always and danny prefers it. their conversations typically leave danny furious, her anger bleeding into the night with attempted but restless sleep.

“you keep staring like that and those wrinkles will be permanent soon.”

Danny relaxed her face, but went back to frowning almost immediately because fuck her, that asshole.

“well we can’t all be stuck in puberty.”

Carmilla smiles, not a half sneer or insolent grin, but an actual smile. It makes the edges of her eyes crinkle.

“your cheeks are starting to match your hair. It’s cute.”

Danny swore into her scarf and blushed deeper.

Winter shared carmilla; it offered her like it offered the cold, on a silver platter. they both had the habit of being docile in the quiet snow, until they reared their ugly head with unrelenting freeze. 

“Laura enjoyed it by way, when she felt you on me. She unraveled differently, like an obedient lamb to its slaughter. Willingly.”

The comment stuns danny momentarily, its inappropriateness, its audacity; it’s the last thing danny ever wanted to hear. She lunges for carmilla, grabbing her by the collars of her shirt. She knows by now carmilla will overpower her each time, she knows, but the wrath carmilla harvests in danny is unrelenting too.

“you say another word and I swear, I’ll—”

“you’ll what? What will you do? kill me?” they both know the answer and with carmilla’s widening, mocking smile danny’s anger turns. “What do you have, Lawrence, that isn’t mine already?”

Danny also knows what game carmilla is playing, what to say to twist the knife in danny’s side, and she knows better than to fall for it. but she isn’t carmilla, she’s not calloused by centuries of pain and cynicism. she knows, she _knows_ , and it does nothing to stop her from feeling hurt. 

“a soul,” danny answers, releasing carmilla with a repulsed shove.

Danny cools while carmilla waits patiently. It frustrates danny to no end that she is the hotheaded human and carmilla will play the role of the unaffected vampire like a master, effortlessly. She wished for that night in the woods, where carmilla screamed in her face, where she seemed remotely human.

“why the fuck would you bring that up?” danny doesn’t have enough strength to yell; she’s tired of whatever carmilla is doing. “what do you want from me?” 

it does something to carmilla. Her face wrings tragically and for the first time danny manages to strike a chord in carmilla only to end up with a plea to take it back.

“your distrust, it reminds me of what I am. laura makes me forget too much.”

Danny can tell that carmilla means well, that it’s a compliment, but it’s horrifying to hear she’s the one that makes carmilla feel like a monster.

“I can’t, carmilla. You’re destroying me in the process.”

Carmilla nods, resigns.

“that’s fine. But you should know, I didn’t lie when I said laura enjoyed it. I’ll leave it to you whether you want to entertain that.”

danny doesn’t go to bed with the same anger she’s been sleeping with for the last three months. This feeling is much worse. She closes her eyes to a sadness sitting on the back of her skull: laura and carmilla have danny and each other, while danny has no one. 

She couldn’t take this loneliness. It’d kill her before she got rid of it. 

*

for once danny wanted to unexpectedly show up and catch carmilla unprepared. She’s done being the only one caught off guard, confused in the mess of feelings that don’t seem to right themselves into their rightful places. She’s been careful too long.

Carmilla gets enough time to drop her bag before danny crashes into her and onto laura’s desk. Laura’s laptop skids across and hits the wall, pens and pencils spilling along the way. She forgoes any tenderness, something she would have never been able to do with laura. Laura is a cathedral, she is danny’s skinned knees before her altar.

And carmilla is none of that.

(carmilla cuts danny’s lip with a fang, drags her tongue against the wound and is delighted at the taste of blood.)

For something so powerful carmilla is weightless. Danny easily lifts her to the desk and carmilla’s thigh high’d legs open for danny, heels pressing to the back of danny’s knees and danny finds her knees weren’t just made to buckle for laura. she can already feel the bruises forming and kissing carmilla still leaves her chest aching with the lack of air. 

Carmilla’s usual patience doesn’t exist. She rips at danny’s t-shirt to pull her down for a kiss. She doesn’t stay aloof when danny is sliding her hand over the band of her thong to grab her ass. She discards the vampire in her when they’re busy acting like animals, even if it makes her feel differently. 

They both get what they want. 

Danny won’t be able to see them, but she knows the familiar marks carmilla’s nails will leave on her back. She shuts her eyes and tries not to think about it, listens instead to the rhythmic thud of the desk against the wall, pens and pencils rolling to the floor.

*

they don’t stay in bed together or cuddle. Carmilla is cold with two blankets on top of them and it’s not like danny cares for her company. 

But danny wonders what it means when she breathes in the sheets and doesn’t mind carmilla in the traces where she only looked for laura.

* 

It gets lonely for them, staying in their silence, so they do talk sometimes, minute conversations in between wordless hours.

“I still don’t understand how she loves you. You’re a vampire.”

Danny doesn’t bother with being polite, and she’s sure carmilla appreciates it.

“we’re every teen’s dream.”

it’s said with sarcasm, but danny knows carmilla has probably used that exact sentiment for every one of her victims. 

Danny moves her eyes from her book to carmilla’s and finds they’re already there, looking right at her. “laura understands my nature, what I am. she doesn’t want to change me or for me to change.”

danny envies their honesty, the security in their relationship. A part of danny couldn’t believe it, the part that adored laura but didn’t fully understand her, made obvious by her easy and absolute acceptance of carmilla. But it seemed so natural too; of course laura loved carmilla as she was, how could she do anything different.

“I know,” carmilla says, like she had been on the same tracks of danny’s thoughts before. “she’s…surprising.”

“yea,” danny says, an offhand remark, because she’s trying so hard to reel herself in from carmilla, to attach her focus to the words anchored on the pages before her. It’s no use; letters start to blur.

Their relationship was exactly what laura needed, and something danny could never give her. 

* 

“I still hate you,” danny confesses one morning, not as an insult, but as an unfortunate truth she herself didn’t understand.

Carmilla is sitting in danny’s chair, legs bent and heels on the edge. she’s in one of danny’s old sweatshirts. danny knows carmilla doesn’t need them, she doesn’t get cold, but threw it for carmilla to wear for propriety’s sake. she’s so small in the sweatshirt, in that chair; danny almost hates her a little less.

“can you still feel that?” danny asks her. 

Carmilla tilts her head, her bangs falling to the side just barely and she’s only reading a book, sitting in a chair, but she looks so, so pretty. danny definitely regrets this whole conversation.

“I can.”

*

 _you took her away from me_ danny childishly thinks on the days her pride is worse for wear. It’s only for a second, and then it’s wiped clean from her mind because she knows better than to think that way, like laura was a prize to be won. carmilla could be lurking too.

So Danny searches for laura on carmilla’s skin and mouth but it’s never enough. She kisses carmilla longer, fucks her harder, grasping onto anything she possibly missed. she cums thinking of laura’s name and biting back carmilla’s. it’s always just shy of satisfaction.

Carmilla wasn’t even a substitute. She was a meager bridge.

*

snowstorms make for wonderful prisons. outside the summer society lodge’s windows the snow falls on a seamless loop, with no end in sight.

Carmilla wanders the oak enclosure, looks at the trophies, both metal and supernatural, awards for the society’s fitness and skill in sport and hunt. 

“tell me the truth, you’d love my head plastered up there with the trolls and stags, wouldn’t you?”

Danny doesn’t look up from her computer screen, carelessly makes a comment and bites her tongue afterward.

“you wouldn’t fit, you’re too delicate.”

Danny can sense the raised eyebrow on carmilla’s face without looking. 

“those things actually looked like a challenge to kill is what I mean.”

Carmilla stares at one of the forest trolls, its mangled features an enlarged and misshapen resemblance of a human’s. its eyes looked like glass.

“didn’t your primary education teach you how looks can be deceiving, about judging a book by its cover, that all that glitters isn’t gold—”

“is that a twilight reference?” 

carmilla turns her head enough to show danny the profile of her face, the curled lip.

“hardly.”

Danny peers up at the troll too, the embossed carving of her name right under it. in truth danny hated it, hated senseless death. The troll had been a menace, destroying parts of the forest for its own pleasure, snapping the necks of does and hawks for entertainment. She hated senseless death. It was how she justified the arrow she shot through its giant heart. 

That was freshman year. It was an awe, a feat; danny was to be groomed for president of the club immediately. She lost but was made vice president, the youngest ever. she cried for weeks, despised everything about it. She only wanted somewhere to belong, but instead was ostracized by the older sisters who refused to listen to the beginner’s luck twerp.

But as all things, it passed. The sisters came around, the position had its perks. She made the campus safer and gained the loyalty and family of a community. She had to believe it was partly due to her gentle personality and her disapproval of killing anything simply for an initiation. she _hated_ senseless death.

“if you’re wondering whether I want to kill you…I do. at least a part of me does.” 

They look at each other and carmilla gives her the softest gaze, so horribly gentle danny wished for the steeled eyes and snarl of her mouth she knew so well. 

“it’s a very small part,” carmilla tells her. 

*


	3. 3

in early february, the storms pass and leave behind snow like torn down pillows across the streets and buildings, feathered and soft. Danny awaited spring as much as the earth did, sick of snow and the extra clothes and the eerie absence of life that seemed to flourish. Laura shares this with her and on a day that turns into days where carmilla disappears (a common occurrence they accept and let be) laura spends it with danny, locked from the world.

They usually watch movies or exchange youtube clips to laugh over and laura is nothing like carmilla. She’s beautiful, delicate; she can crumble. She makes danny hesitate, hands shaking to touch when all she really wants to do is hold her. (carmilla is too much like laura in that way too.)

On one particularly day, the afternoon dusk comes too early as it does and puts shadows over laura’s eyes where none should be.

It happens like it’s by the book: danny’s love is wild, a teenage lust that has no real target but still burns a hole through her heart. They’re sitting on the couch, crossed legged and knees to knees, dark patterns dancing on laura’s face from the fire.

The direct contact of laura’s lips, all the things danny tried to find in carmilla’s, cannot compare. It rushes past danny’s mouth, her nose commiserating with her tongue; thecookiestheperfumethelaundrydetergenttheshampoolaurajustlaura. 

“laura, what-what are you doing?”

it’s ridiculous, danny’s self righteousness and some goddamn honor code she has for someone whom she deeply despises. (There might be something more to it as well, but it’s still hate—danny didn’t easily hate anyone.)

“don’t ask stupid questions,” laura breathes, pulling at danny’s neck. 

laura kisses her again and danny protests die as the winter would have it. It’s foreign to meet laura gentle and sweet; she expects the bruise of carmilla’s anger, her jealousy. Danny almost forgets how to kiss without trying to inflict pain. She almost doesn’t want to remember.

*

almost. 

She falls asleep by the computer on a warmer, different night, where the cold doesn’t push her to a bed and blankets. three anthologies are spread across her desk and her drool on one of its passages. The door had creaked open and closed, the footsteps innocent in their weightlessness but sinister in their purpose, like a cat on a hunt.

Danny awakes from carmilla’s light bite at her neck, harder than their usual force. Carmilla rarely injured to cripple, especially so early.

“how was it?”

danny doesn’t pay attention to how it’s the first time carmilla’s voice is a small whisper, somehow muffled and gone, when it’s always been right at her ear. She sits upright, gives carmilla her neck.

“how was what?”

carmilla bites again, right at the tendon and danny has to wince.

“laura.”

Danny rolls her neck from carmilla’s mouth, straightening and stiffening away from her.

“I’m not talking about that.”

“was it all you dreamed it’d be?”

“carmilla—” danny pushes herself up to stand but carmilla thrusts her back down with a damning hand. Danny can’t fight back; she doesn’t want to. Again. How can it be again?

“I like the little mark you left at her right hip.”

Danny stays sitting, listening to carmilla behind her, imagining the menacing look, the strained words at her unforgiving mouth.

Somewhere danny hears a clock tick, the whir of her computer’s fan and carmilla, there with lungs and air to breathe but missing the mortality to conjure it. danny wonders if carmilla knows it doesn’t make her indestructible, that it makes her fragile.

“I love her. I can’t change that,” danny tells her quietly, and it’s the most honest thing she’s said to carmilla. It makes her never want to speak again if it meant hurting less.

Carmilla doesn’t stay any longer, and danny stays sitting, with her love an eviscerated organ, blood and all, pooling at her feet. But for whom, for whom?

*

danny works her on dissertation and runs no more than once a week, usually in a panic and always with a panicked rush to get back to the room to continue working. It was the only distraction that came close to helping. She stops running altogether within three weeks. 

She sees laura on and off and during those times she tries not to think of carmilla. They laze on danny’s bed, in their underwear and bras, the heater sighing with them. They sit on the floor, back to back, danny with her papers and papers and “all those poor dead trees” laura would lament, beautifully smiling. Some days laura would just fall asleep in danny’s bed, eyelids fluttering in dream, curled in sheets danny swore could act as armor. 

Danny awaits the impending disaster with open arms.

*

she learns some tragedies happen without a sound and are just as terrible.

On the last night of the patrols, dawn creeps its early, welcomed arrival over the crown of carmilla’s head like a halo. They keep a conversation as stiff bodies in the remnants of melting snow and crooked branches scratching at the wind. Carmilla’s wearing a jacket for once and a green knitted scarf wrapped just below her bottom lip. It looks like something laura would wear.

“laura tells me this is the last night,” carmilla says, still so unaffected, her voice exactly how danny remembered it. 

she couldn’t tell before but carmilla is wearing mittens as well, fleece thumbs poking out of her pockets. It makes danny smile so hard, so wide, to think laura must have argued senselessly, while carmilla would have argued back begrudgingly and relent just the same. Thankfully carmilla is too focused on the sun’s paltry light to notice danny’s smile. 

Danny tries something new, to maybe sow up their ruins haphazardly. She’s inadequate, incapable of understanding living without the inevitable approach of death, how the ground under her feet isn’t just soil and sediment but years and people and buildings, trodden and packed not as history, but a memory. 

Danny takes a step toward carmilla, and another, until carmilla’s eyes show specks of hazel and brown, rather than tar. She takes a step back from danny.

“just come here. Don’t fight with me.”

Danny kisses her, and breathes into carmilla the warm life of her beating heart and full lungs.

*

so it does start something new. 

They find themselves—they being the three of them, danny, laura, and carmilla—on the steps of the music building, the afternoon sun finally warm again in the Austrian bitter cold.

“ooh I like this one,” laura says, reciting a line from her assigned reading book, “human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece.”

Danny and carmilla spout simultaneously and respectively, “oh brother,” and “give me a break,” and exchange a glance in agreement, a strange occurrence altogether.

“what! Would you rather me quote some of the raging pedophilia?” laura asked.

“Nabokov writes like a wind up toy. He keeps going and going and,” carmilla loops her finger in a circle and rolls her eyes.

“he definitely has a talent for prose,” danny remarks, even if she does agree with carmilla a little bit. “you can’t deny that.”

“oh, I can.”

but their agreements would always be as glances, a quick moment in passing. 

“give me one author from that era who rivals his style—”

“well how much time do you have, Lawrence, ‘cause I’m dead and I don’t know if you want to spend the rest of your life being proven wrong.”

“joy, dying of boredom sounds wonderful.”

“okay, okay, can we drop down a couple of threat levels to somewhere green? No? how about yellow? There you go, that’s better.”

Danny and carmilla deflate back to their spots on laura’s sides. laura furls her fingers over carmilla’s and kisses danny’s cheek; she loves them both so much, danny would be blind not to notice. 

When danny smiles it’s for laura’s sake only and thinks sadly, how could this last.

*

their gatherings as three are sparse. With laura around, danny and carmilla fake civility and regress the evil within them; it’s not so much hatred, but it’s a toxicity both agree laura shouldn’t inhabit.

As happy as it might make laura, it kills them. Danny can’t do anything about her jealousy, as much as carmilla can’t do anything but loathe danny in laura’s presence. 

Together, laura brought out the worst in them.

They’re in laura’s and carmilla’s room and laura’s just a closed door away, showering, but it still soothes their combined bitterness where they can talk without fighting.

“I should just stake you, turn you to ash,” danny says thinking of her drawer. The stakes are still all there.

“you say that like it’ll upset me. what do you think your bones and skin will become. Ashes to ashes, remember?”

“you’re no different.”

Carmilla cracks a smile but her eyes are empty and danny can’t look.

“that’s right. In the end all you’re left with is dust.”

Danny has to leave before laura emerges and she thinks to kiss carmilla, enough to leave some of herself for laura on carmilla’s lips, but it’s probably for the best she doesn’t. it’s probably for the best she tries to forget them both.

*

they don’t see each other for a long time. Danny goes back to running and sometimes she thinks she sees carmilla by the bleachers, always gone by the time she rounded another lap. 

It’s difficult not to think of them. Every once in a while danny gets drunk with hopes it will get easier. One shot for laura’s smile, another for carmilla’s eyes, one for laura when she rests her forehead against danny’s, one more for all the languages carmilla knows and the explicit things she said to danny in them.

It works for that single moment before she drops from consciousness. then the morning makes her violently remember why she wanted to forget, with vomit that would burn worse than the alcohol and make her eyes water.

Laura and carmilla had better been just as fucked up loving danny.

*

a month of peace is broken when carmilla bursts into danny’s room one night as she’s trying to write. 

“exactly how many brain cells do you have? Because I’m not entirely sure you have any at all.”

The visit and outburst is unexpected but unsurprising; danny could always feel rage rumble within carmilla, tremors foretelling of a vicious earthquake. 

danny remains calm and closes the book in her lap.

“what are you talking about?” 

Carmilla steels herself and says a single word.

“Abigail.”

A frown settles in danny’s eyebrows, their tension traveling down to her jaw. “what about abigail?” 

“you really do like them young, don’t you,” carmilla sneers, a genuine, awful twist of her expression and danny feels disgust and anger and ricochets it right back to carmilla.

“are you my exception, carm?” danny mocks.

It’s the first time danny witnesses it, that moment carmilla eyes blacken with the anticipation of her fangs. 

“do not play with fire, Lawrence.”

danny doesn’t see them, but knows with how forced carmilla spoke, they were right behind her pretty, red mouth.

*

Abigail was a newly accepted sister at the summer society. 

She was taller than carmilla or laura, but still shorter than danny, enough for her to rest her head on danny’s shoulder when they sat together. Her smile was cute and crooked, and she did great impressions that could make danny laugh for hours. 

She was safer than laura, with no desires of revenging kidnappings or fighting evil. She was safer than carmilla too, holding a human heart, a living metronome that lulled danny to sleep, instead of a hollow chest danny wanted so badly to fill.

Who could blame danny for refusing to grasp at shreds of normalcy, when all of it was within arm’s reach. 

* 

they meet after danny thinks she needs to make an effort to return to carmilla’s graces. It’s not a lowly crawl but it might as well be because there are no nightly marches or parties to disguise a chance visit. Danny wants to see her.

Carmilla is standing at the edge of the woods, just a few trees deep and she is rooted too, her back a staunch stop sign. So danny stays far behind and lets carmilla turn by no invitation of her own. It takes carmilla a few minutes, enough for danny to start to shiver and she almost thinks the small movement is what carmilla hears, what makes her finally walk to danny.

“I’m sorry,” danny tells her. 

Carmilla grabs her by the back of the neck, putting them nose to nose. Danny prepares herself for the onslaught of carmilla’s sinew, nails digging into her skin, the fixed, sharp jawline. She gets none of that. She gets carmilla’s eyes that don’t look eighteen at all; they look warred soldier sad and just as old.

“you can’t leave. I haven’t destroyed you yet,” carmilla tells her.

Carmilla doesn’t make a sound when danny kisses her. But danny hears herself breathe, hears the sharp intake of air and desire to grab carmilla’s words and shove them right back down her throat.

*

it takes her a while to figure out laura isn’t the only thing holy. holiness shadows carmilla, on her gestures and words and touches danny had always misread as limited kindness, just a simple courtesy to the poor, dumb human.

“do you remember everything?” danny asks on a day carmilla is resting next to her, surely on the edge of sleep but no annoyance toward the sudden inquiry.

“about what?”

“your life.”

By now carmilla would be out of bed and danny overlooked this too, unable to count all the seconds carmilla had been extending her stays. 

“I don’t. my brain works too much like yours.”

“meaning you forget things too the older you get.”

“yes.”

“do you remember your life… before?”

danny had a hard time saying it. yes, it was obvious carmilla was a vampire by so many accounts, but danny would forget when carmilla’s bare back indented and sloped with muscle and bone, soft skin danny could feel underneath her fingertips. 

“I do, but I can feel it fading.”

Like so many things, danny couldn’t completely understand. How many more years until carmilla forgot her parents? Her home? Her childhood? Any semblance of what it felt like to be human?

Danny presses a kiss at the small hollow of space between carmilla’s almond vertebrae. The scars from the troll have healed terribly, and they run down carmilla’s back like separate, jagged spines.

“I love laura,” danny says into the bubbled scars, “but I think I might love you too.”

“I know.”

Danny burns with embarrassment carmilla must feel because she tells danny to turn around and throws a leg over danny’s. her body cools danny’s within seconds. 

“it’s alright to hate me too. It’s still there, somewhere in your chest.” Danny panics and carmilla holds her tighter. “I don’t care. I don’t care what you give me. I’ll take it.”

*

danny makes amends with laura as well, apologizing with pie and dates and cuddles, warmth carmilla couldn’t provide. It’s no longer a competition though, but a balance.

They’re in the garden tended by one of the university clubs, in the middle of a new semester and spring. Color had returned to the gray campus but doubt still clung to danny like winter.

“you don’t think it’s insane? The three of us, passing each other around like—”

“no, do not do that. Do not make this into some freak thing you can judge.” Laura is adamant and resolute; she knows no other truth. “I care for you, you care for me. I care for carmilla, carmilla cares for you—”

“that is a joke,” danny says seriously.

“she does. I know she doesn’t ever make it obvious or easy but she does.”

For a moment danny forgets about the conversation at hand to look at laura, how her eyes never saw someone without seeing the light inside them, no matter how dim. Carmilla was so damn lucky.

“i—i mean...i guess, I don’t know,” danny says, picking at blades of grass.

Danny could sigh when laura kisses her, as if her lips had never sought or cared for anyone else’s, and danny realizes she was pretty damn lucky too.

***


End file.
